University Daily Kansan / Tuesday, November 7, 1989
NeXT computer system now available in university market
By Travis Butler
Kansan staff writer
The NeXT computer was introduced almost a year ago with great fanfare, proclaiming it 'the' computer for the university market.
Now the final version of the operating system has been released, and users can finally judge for themselves what the machine is like. Comments generally have been favorable, but there have been complaints about universities raising the computer's price.
Andy Kollpillal. Lawrence senior, works on the NeXT computer system at the Computer Center.
5
The Academic Computing Services' Technology Center received a NeXT computer last November with a pre-release version of the system software designed for developers.
"Version 0.8 the pre-release version was full of bugs," said Bryan Whitehead, worker at the center. "It showed a little potential back then but couldn't realize it because of all the little insects.
"I think it's become a lot more stable. It's come into its own as a machine. I would recommend it for some people, but I wouldn't recommend it for everybody or for every application."
Whitehead said the NeXT was strong at math-oriented applications because it came with a good math processor called Mathematica. It also is good, he said, with memory-
intensive operations, such as searching the Shakespeare collected works and Webster's electronic dictionary
that come with the system.
"But I would hesitate to recommend it as a chau or a beginner's
machine," he said. "I don't think it is geared for the new user."
Blakely Hughes. Shawnee senior.
"It's great," he said. "It's an incredible value for what you get."
said the NeXT was right for him.
The NeXT educational price is $8,500 for the basic machine, Hughes said. A laser printer costs $2,000, and an optional hard drive costs the same. Hughes bought both with his machine.
"I bought it to increase my man- ability after I graduate," he said. "I am a computer science major, and I work on something on the leading edge."
Hughes was able to buy his computer for the standard educational price, and he said he was fortunate to do so. People at other universities, he said, have run into problems with pricing.
Jonathan Dubman, a student at the University of California at Berkeley, stated on a national computer network that he wasn't able to buy a NeXT there. He could buy one at the University of California at Davis, but he would have to pay a 15 percent fee and wait 30 days for delivery. The fee would bring the price for an entry-level machine to more than $8,000 after taxes. People on the network complained of similar charges at other universities.
"Reportedly, UC-Davis has sold but 10 machines over the past year," Dubman said. "With those terms, I'm not surprised."
W. Germans say reforms could lure refugees back
The Associated Press
SCHIRNDING, West Germany — East Germans crossed the border by the carload in a cold, light rain yesterday, including a young couple who came directly from their wedding, still wearing formal attire.
West Germans who watched the stream of cars entering their country from Czechoslovakia predicted many refugees would return home if distrust East Germany introduced enough reforms.
The waiting line of vehicles was 400 yards long at the Schrindng crossing in northeastern Bavaria.
"A lot of them will go back if there are true democratic changes that create real trust in the government," said music teacher Franz Meixner from Wiesbaden in central Bavaria.
Mixner, who is 60 and left East Berlin for
the West in 1948, said his sympathy went out to the newcomers.
"My neighbors say, 'Why are they coming here?' he said. "Especially the young West students who work in jobs and apartments. I tell my neighbors they should go over there and see how they like it."
Last month, East Germany announced an amnesty that appears to allow the return of any of the tens of thousands who have fled without exit visas.
ADN, the official East German news agency,
said late yesterday that more than 23,000
citizens had left through Czechoslovakia in the
previous three days. They join more than
150,000 who have emigrated legally, escaped or
failed to return from approved trips abroad
this year.
West German officials have had to requisition temporary shelter, and there have been demands to stop the flow of refugees. Chancel
lor Helmut Kohl said political and economic reform is needed in East Germany to keep its people home.
Gabi Engmann, standing in the rain at the Schirding crossing, said she also believed many refugees would return if reforms came to pass
In West Germany, "they will certainly find there is a real housing shortage," said the 52-year-old hairdresser from Wunsiedel.
kohl's government has promised a major building program to ease the shortage and is recommending the use of vacant offices as apartments.
Government officials estimated late last month that about one-third of East Germans
Manfred Mueller, 59, of nearby Hof, believed the pull on refugees would be strong if conditions improved in East Germany. "Just consider how much they left behind — friends, relatives and almost all their belongings."
who had arrived since September still were unemployed.
Ethnic Germans also are arriving from elsewhere.
Red Cross officials say they expect up to 400,000 from the Soviet Union and other East European countries this year.
ARD-TV said the East Germans were arriving with huge hopes. It showed the couple crossing the border in their wedding finery.
Sylvio Lube, 21, rode his motorcycle through cold rain to Schirnding from Koenigswusterhausen, just south of East Berlin.
"When you have a goal, you can get used to
the factory worker said after
the 180-mile ride.
He said he left his 21-year-old wife, Janetée, and their two small children, but "I'm hoping to get them out later. All I had was this motorcycle to leave with. We don't even own a car."
Health hazards in drinking water are minimal, experts say
Kansan staff writer
By Beth Behrens
U. S. technologists and the Environmental Protection Agency have turned their eyes to Europe for new answers to old problems, said Steve Randkev, professor of civil engineering.
Water-related health threats have waned since the 1890s, but because of new methods of detecting contaminants in treated water, the concern continues to grow, water experts said yesterday.
European treatment systems use granulated carbon filters and ozone to remove organic elements from water instead of adding chlorine a method used in the United States since 1910.
Wolfgang Kuhn, an internationally recognized expert in the field of drinking water treatment, spoke to a group of engineers yesterday about European treatment methods for the removal of pesticides from drinking water.
Kuhn said that studies done at the Engler-
Bunte Institute in Karlsruhe, West Germany, had shown that using carbon filters, a form of water treatment used 500 years ago by the Chinese, was most effective in removing pesticides but that the institute had determined that more than one treatment system should be used to produce the cleanest drinking water.
He showed comparison studies between U.S. and European systems that determined the chlorination system to be much less effective in removing pesticides than its European counterpart.
Some University of Kansas professors said that although the water quality in the United States may not be as high as European standards, the perceived threats harmed more people than the water they consumed.
Ross McKinney, professor of civil engineering, said water quality studies began around 1887 when waterborne diseases were prevalent. At the turn of the century, cholera and typhoid fever epidemics were at an all time high. By 1910, 21 out of every 100,000 people died of one of the two diseases. He said that 337 Kansans died
of typhoid fever in 1905 and that 440 died in 1907.
“Around 1910 they started adding chlorite to the water,” McKinney said. “Now we don't kill anybody after chlorinating it, they found out it caused bacteria and viruses in the water.”
Randikte said problems arose in the mid 1970s when scientists discovered that adding chlorine to the water formed trihalomethanes, which are potential carcinogens.
Randke said the Environmental Protection Agency standards set the concentration level at 100 micrograms of trihalomethanes per liter. If that number were compared to the population of the United States, McKinney said, it would be comparable to two people out of the entire population.
When chlorine is mixed with the natural organic matter found in water, it forms trihalomethanes such as chloroform, he said. In a laboratory experiment shown to cause cancer in laboratory animals,
Although the number is small, Randitke said the level might change soon. He said the
standard was expected to drop to between 20 and 50 micrograms per liter.
The level of trihalomethanes in Lawrence's drinking water is normally low, McKinney said, but the level depends largely on the amount of organic compounds that wash off fields. When detectable, he said, the level was close to the standard, but the standard level was so low that going over the maximum level by a small amount would not do much harm.
Randike said he thought the health risks were notreat.
"In my opinion, the health effects are probably negligible, or even nonexistent," Randke said. "There is a possibility of some level, however small, of health effects occurring in the water material in the water. Because we can't say there is zero risk, the public is concerned."
"We've become a nation of hypochondriacs. We have children in Third World countries who are dying of diarrhea, and we worry about parts-per-billion in drinking water. I think there's something wrong with our priorities."
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